re: #60 Dark_Falcon

If McCain had won it is likely the Tea Party would not have come into being. Conservative activists would have been more focused on getting the laws they wanted enacted and the TP would not have received the tremendous boost it got from the national debate over Obamacare in the summer of 2009.

True, it likely would have led instead to a mid-term where Democrats only expanded their majorities in the House and Senate, ensuring McCain’s legacy as a guy who got little accomplished due to his need to keep the base happy but still look “bipartisan.”